County receives notice from city appealing ruling regarding housing of prisoners

16th Judicial District Circuit Judge Holly Meyer recently heard the case of Independence County versus the City of Batesville regarding whether or not the city should pay the county for housing its prisoners in the county jail, and if so, what the charge for each prisoner should be.  

A few days ago Judge Myer announced her ruling. 

White River Now’s Gary Bridgman spoke to the attorney for Independence County, Daniel Haney, about the ruling.

“There’s a case from the [Arkansas] Supreme Court — Mississippi County vs. the City of Blytheville — that establishes what a prisoner of the municipality is, and so long as they fit that description, if Independence County houses that prisoner, then the municipality is responsible for paying for that prisoner,” said Haney. “They can either do that through an agreement or through a county ordinance by setting a daily fee. We argued that there was not an actual agreement between Batesville and Independence County. 

“There was, however, an ordinance that was established back in 2015 that set a daily fee, so what we provided to Judge Meyer was that we had not received any payment from the City of Batesville since May of 2017 to the present, and we asked that she set the damages amount for the daily fee of that ordinance. What the judge ruled was that the ordinance applies, it’s the law of the land, and so there is an agreement and that the city has to pay from May 2017 to the present.”

However, Haney told Bridgman the county has received a notice of appeal from the city, so the case will be heard by the Court of Appeals or the state Supreme Court.

This is a separate case from the dispute between the governmental entities on the funding of the operation of the District Court.